Archive for the ‘Artworks’ Category

Orbital Decay is a work of algorithmic art I created last night and is 25 by 25 inches when printed at 300ppi (pixels per inch). To create this art I used an interactive algorithmic art program I finished writing yesterday. Traditionally algorithmic art was defined as art created by a largely deterministic, algorithmic process using parameters to control the process. Complicating the matter of categorization has been the introduction of that category of digital art known as generative art – which has substantial overlap with the algorithmic art category with respect to how the art is created from a computational perspective. In fact it has been argued that algorithmic art is a subset of generative art – even though the former precedes the later. Wikipedia has this to say on the subject:

Algorithmic art, also known as computer-generated art, is a subset of generative art (generated by an autonomous system) and is related to systems art (influenced by systems theory). Fractal art is an example of algorithmic art. Source: Wikipedia entry for algorithmic art

Why Algorithmic and not Generative?

So why have I categorized Orbital Decay as a work of interactive algorithmic art and not as a work of generative art? That’s a good question because this work does qualify as a work of generative art. However as I am the artist I get to decide what I want to call it – although I could argue that to label this art as generative would be equally appropriate.

You will note I have added the qualifier interactive to the algorithmic label. I did this because the creation of this artwork did require direct interaction from me. Unlike traditional algorithmic art programs which can be driven entirely by parameters and parametric settings (an autonomous system), this program as written could not create anything without the artist’s direct input throughout the creation process.

Orbital Decay is available as wall art and as illustration on a variety of products offered by Redbubble. Clicking either the link button or the image below will take you to the Orbital Decay Redbubble product page.

One of the negatives with respect to digital art is that the concept of an original does not apply as it does with traditional art. With traditional art the original is the physical media to which physical paint has been applied and there will be only one. With digital art the concept of a physical original does not apply because of the nature of digital files, which are basically infinitely reproducible. What has long been viewed as a shortcoming does offer digital artists at least one unique capability.

Because the original artwork is a digital file that can be duplicated, it is possible to use that digital canvas as the foundation for the creation of other derivative artworks. One piece I recently completed is A Cool Day in Hell which had as its original working title Dante’s Inferno.

In creating this artwork, I used one of the generative painting programs I’d designed. The program could be characterized as the Adobe Photoshop Paintbrush Engine on steroids. With one set of parameters, I can entrust the program to do the entire painting by itself. This would be similar to the filter features of Adobe Photoshop or the auto-paint feature of Corel Painter. With another set of parameters, the program functions very much like the paintbrushes in Photoshop and Painter when placed under the artist’s control. The most interesting set of parameters are those that blend program autonomy with some degree of artist interaction. It was this third option that I used to create this particular artwork.

It was only after adding this art to my portfolio on Redbubble that I decided to take that artwork and use it as the starting point for another artwork. I decided to use the same generative painting program that I had used for the original piece. This derivative artwork, titled Passage to Oblivion, does bear a resemblance to the original on which it is based.

Passage to Oblivion Generative Landscape Painting

While similar, the two have different color temperatures, textural feel, tone and contrast. Compositionally, the large, open, somewhat mountainous subterranean landscape of A Cool Day in Hell is transformed into a claustrophobic feeling of being inside an eerie underground cave.

To see either of these two artworks on Redbubble, simply click the appropriate image above and the Redbubble page will open in a new tab on your browser. It’s particularly interesting to see how these two artworks look when applied to apparel.

One of the projects I undertook over the Thanksgiving holidays was to create a new series of abstract algorithmic artworks. The first of these artworks that I’ve made available on Redbubble and Crated is the piece Euclidean Chaos.

The Euclidean in the title is a reference to Euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system described by the Greek mathematician Euclid in his textbook on geometry titled simply Elements, written sometime around 300 B.C. The fundamental "space" in Euclidean geometry is the plane. The chaotic aspect of Euclidean Chaos is, what is visually, a countless number of intersecting planes which constitute the artwork.

My analogy for this artwork is the cosmological concept of the multiverse or parallel universes – a system wherein there exists an infinity of non-interacting universes, each unaware of the other’s existence.

I hope you like Euclidean Chaos and will visit its pages on Redbubble and Crated (by clicking the buttons above) to see the variety of art product offerings available for this artwork.

Last month I added four calendars to my Redbubble portfolio. Three of the four calendars involve space in that the source photography for the calendars is from space-based cameras. With respect to the images from space, image processing was performed on all the images in order to:

I hope you find these calendars attractive. If you’re in need of a present (Christmas or otherwise) for someone, I hope that you consider one of these calendars as being the perfect gift.

Strangely I haven’t assembled any calendars based on my digital art. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I will have time to create any art-based calendars between now and Christmas. But then again … maybe I will find the time.

Coastal Cliffs At Sunset is my newest work of digital art – which I completed on the Fourth of July. Stylistically I’m not sure how I would categorize this art. Clearly it is not representational art. It’s not really abstract art though it features abstraction. It’s not cubist either though it uses elements of cubism. Nor is it surreal – although in creating this artwork I employed some surrealism.

The creation of this artwork came on the heels of my creation of Stepping Through Time using a new workflow and algorithmic processing technique I developed. In fact the process that I used to create Coastal Cliffs At Sunset is very similar to the process I used to create Stepping Through Time – which you can see on either Redbubble or CRATED.

Fresh Brewed Coffee is a digital painting I completed a few days ago. Just as macro photography provides us with extreme close-up views of things, Fresh Brewed Coffee is a work of macro art in that it represents a close-up view of the bubbles on the surface of a freshly brewed cup of coffee. What I particularly like about this macro perspective is that it lends the artwork an abstract appearance. You can click the image above to see an enlarged wallpaper of this art.

Now I’ve been making coffee using a coffee press (aka French press) for years but I had never really "looked" at those bubbles that were floating around on the surface. Perhaps it was the lighting, but it was this one instance of brewing coffee that inspired me to create this particular artwork.

To create the artistic effect I wanted, I did some rewriting of one of my generative art programs. This involved modifying both basic functionality as well as the variety and scope of the parameters associated with the paint brush engine. FYI, what initially inspired me to write my own painting programs was a combination of the limitations of the Adobe Photoshop paint brush engine with a desire to create art that was unique to me – since I do not make my programs commercially available. For those digital artists who are also software savvy, I suggest checking out Processing (Java), openFrameworks (C++), or Cinder (C++).

The version of Fresh Brewed Coffee shown here is the open edition version and is available for purchase online at the following print-on-demand (POD) sites: